After a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer killed teenaged resident Michael Brown in August 2014 and the 21st Century Task Force on Policing was formed, across the United States, a foundational principle of policing emerged: Any agency involved in a shooting incident must consent to a thorough, unbiased and transparent investigation conducted by an independent outside entity. This principle exists to maintain what the task force identified as the three pillars of policing in a democracy: trust, integrity and legitimacy.
Federal agents have effectively been granted immunity from this standard.
Yet as we saw after immigration agents shot dead 37-year-old Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday, Trump administration officials have largely been acting as if federal immigration agents have immunity from this standard, creating a dangerous two-tiered system of accountability where federal officers operate above the scrutiny applied to their state and local counterparts.
The only information we have regarding the two agents involved in Pretti’s death comes from a Department of Homeland Security official who spoke to MS NOW on the condition of anonymity and said, per Border Patrol’s policy, they were placed on paid administrative leave for three days and met with a mental health professional. That source also said they’ll be placed on desk duty pending an internal investigation. But we have reasons to worry about the integrity of that investigation.
I have devoted my entire professional life, more than four decades, to public safety and law enforcement, and I view the killing of Pretti, an intensive care unit nurse at a VA hospital, as a critical inflection point for democracy, decency and law enforcement in the U.S. It is a moment of reckoning, and if it isn’t adequately addressed, it threatens to tear down more than a decade of hard-won progress in police-community relations.
Videos of immigration agents shooting Pretti reveal agents who are, at best, grossly undertrained and poorly supervised, conducting operations with a level of recklessness that is unconscionable — indeed, unthinkable — in professional law enforcement. Reports indicate that federal agents closed off the crime scene to state and local investigators, contaminated evidence and removed witnesses, including those officers who were at the scene of the shooting, out of state. These actions are at odds with long-established and, at least since the aforementioned Michael Brown case, universally accepted investigative protocols.
Moving forward, the federal government must implement four essential reforms related to independent investigations, standardized training, increased supervision and scene preservation.
These actions are at odds with universally accepted investigative protocol.
Though the federal government ought to have a role in investigating shootings that involve federal agents, the first thing we need is a policy that mandates that any such shooting also be investigated by an independent state or county agency, working in partnership with federal investigators where appropriate.
This investigation must be credible, legitimate, transparent and conducted in a nonpartisan manner. That last part is particularly crucial given the current political climate. The investigating body must have unfettered access to the scene, evidence and witnesses from the moment an incident occurs. In the present case, law enforcement officials in Minnesota have said that the federal government has blocked their efforts to investigate Pretti’s killing.
Second, federal law enforcement agencies must adopt the same standards of accountability that have been implemented at state and local levels since the 21st Century Task Force report. This includes comprehensive use-of-force policies, de-escalation training, body-worn camera requirements with strict protocols for activation and preservation of footage and robust systems for tracking and reviewing officer-involved shootings.
Third, we need stringent training and supervision requirements for all federal agents engaged in enforcement activities — particularly among officers and agents conducting street-level operations for which they may lack adequate preparation. The current practice of deploying undertrained agents for complex enforcement actions, including operations involving moving vehicles and populated areas, must end immediately.
Fourth, the federal government must implement immediate scene preservation protocols that prohibit federal agents from excluding state and local authorities from crime scenes within their normal jurisdictions. The reported withholding of evidence from state and local officials, the apparent contamination of evidence and Border Patrol’s admission that it shielded and sent away an officer who shot Pretti cannot be tolerated. Federal law enforcement must be subject to accountability and the most serious consequences specified in law, including potential obstruction-of-justice charges.
Federal law enforcement must be subject to accountability.
The stakes could not be higher. Every incident like the Pretti shooting and the shooting of Renee Nicole Good before it further de-legitimizes federal law enforcement and erodes the painstaking progress made since the Brown case in Ferguson.
The choice before federal leadership is clear: Embrace accountability and transparency through meaningful reform, or continue down a path of ruthlessness and criminal misrepresentation that threatens not only public safety, but the very fabric of legitimate governance. The American people deserve — and the Constitution demands — nothing less than law enforcement that operates under the rule of law, regardless of whether those officers wear local, state or federal badges.
